Over the past couple of weeks, I have given myself permission not to send out my newsletter something I never do. I just needed to be quiet, and quite honestly there were times when I could have written a book, and others when I just wanted and needed to sit quietly and think.

Time is a precious gift and to decide not to evaluate every moment you spend of it can leave you with a lot of coulda, woulda, shoulda’s.

Truthfully, I have found that many people live lives of quiet desperation. You have responsibilities, and work to do. People need you to do things for them. They need you to “fill in the blank”….. and most of us know how to make things happen, and make things right for other people, and that is great! Most of us know how to move mountains, but are they the ones we should really be moving? Or could they just be the mountains that are easy for us to move.

You may even find yourself guilty of living in the norm circle. You wake up every morning, and if you are going to be honest, you let life do you. Most of the things that happen, just happen. Your day to day is made up of the predictable norm, and that might even feel good to you, until like in the movie “Crash” something unexpectedly hits you and you have to figure out what “next” looks like because your “next” no longer fits into that neat little box.

I talked to my Uncle the other day, and he said something that jumped out at me. I was discussing something that was happening, and he said just as nice, things don’t just happen you always have choices about where you go and what happens next, and he’s right! You can plan for change, or you can wait until it hits you and then you can pick up the pieces and make adjustments.

I understand that there are some amazing benefits about staying right where you are, where deciding to change may not only be uncomfortable, but it can be scary. When you don’t know what will happen to you tomorrow you have to have a lot of faith and trust. You have to believe that the desires of your heart will lead you where you want to and should go, even if the path it takes you to get there is far from clear.

“The message” that I heard from the over 150 people that I talked to, read about, saw, and watched was… the passion in your heart always leads you to a place where you should and want to go… you just have to be brave enough to follow it. You have to be willing to look life in the face, and trade in today’s certainty for tomorrow’s awesome. Even though the road that will get you there is not clear, comfortable, or straight. Go anyway!

So today, I encourage you to take out your mirror, not for your face, but for your life! What does your body of work look like? What have you done with your talents? If when you look at the “plate of work” called YOUR life, you are stumbling around trying the find the impact you’ve had, or your impact is small or inconsistent compared with your gifts, let me be the first to say, YOU ARE NOT PLAYING A BIG ENOUGH GAME.

Remember God makes star, man makes firecrackers!

Which one are you?

So those are the words and assignments that I leave you with today! I encourage you to be honest with yourself, and really look at how you are doing. Don’t sit in denial, and don’t try to explain away past failures. We ALL have them!

Today is a new day, start over, start again, but do something that will get you one step closer to where you should really be don’t settle for second best. You are a star, not a firecracker, don’t let another average and regular day steal that for you! Stand up and Stand Out!